Topic: to equalize or not? how to get started?

[TimeBandit]

They way i do with graphical Equalizer is taking a very small curve ( the Q factor set to smallest ), curve set to low volume and "cruising" with it through the whole frequency band while listening. If you reach an area with bad frequencys you really can recognize it.

That ties in to something I wanted to add..

that´s what i meant, usually i use some hard setting of the EQ just to find out the bad areas, on the final master is use as less EQ as i can.

and i use the bass roll-off on the CA-9100, protects oversteering bass and rumbling good during the record... at the older gear i used before with no roll-off feature i did it in post with a low shelv filter set around 60 to 70 Hertz. I can´t tell THE frequency you have to do it´s a bit of experimenting, depending on the conditions where you taped. Even a single location can sound different in case which band plays there or who has the hands on the board.

and protect yourself against mixing to bad, it takes lots concentration of your ears so more then an hour isn´t useful. Save it as a project file in Cubase or similar and trying again after let it asleep for a day is better.

[ironbut]

More fantastic posts by Gutbucket and others here.
Thanks!

[Fried Chicken Boy]

Agreed.  A lot of pertinent info and advice in this thread.

[weedwacker]

I personally don't like to eq since my philosophy is you are making an audience recording not a professional one in most cases but as others said all recordings can benefit from some tweaking when done correctly. If I have to tweak I try to tweak for balance like the recording is too sharp add some low end in, the low end is too muddy reduce it and/or add some high end in, stuff like that in general. I let my ears do the decision making.

I think this link was posted here originally so credit goes to whoever did post this first but this is a great chart that breaks down what is where frequency wise which helps greatly in tweaking of audio for the average joe like myself who doesn't do this for a living.

http://www.independentrecording.net/irn/resources/freqchart/main_display.htm